Workflow vs. Process: What Are the Key Differences?

Well, workflow and process: What differences does it sound to you? It differs from person to person. As most of us know, even though both are similar, they are termed differently based on the circumstances. Agree?

Anyway, let’s understand the thing in detail!

Let’s start with Workflows.

Workflow – What is it?

Are you on your way to completing a task? Then you would know what a workflow is – it is nothing but the steps you take to complete the task. Workflow automation is the advanced form where you automate the steps and relax!

In general, it may refer to the sequence of operations, the work mechanisms, or other things related to it. In a nutshell, a workflow is a critical part of every organizational process and it helps the proper inflow of documents, data, actions, and more.

So, how do you make them?

  • Workflows are a repeatable and recurring sets of tasks 
  • Several tasks make up the formation of a workflow 
  • There is a sequence of closing the tasks in a workflow

Why do businesses rely on Workflow?

A proper workflow lets the users know what they have to do for the day once they are in! It means it guides the user on the set of actions. Consistency is king and hence it helps you meet the quality standards set by the organization. Consider businesses that are going on expansions – reducing manual efforts, cutting down manual tasks, and embracing automation with workflows are the key factors.

As per the study reports, meeting employee expectations is important to some extent if any organization is concerned. Because only if you have set up the expectations properly, you will start getting results. So, workflows help you to set up the workflow via some automation platforms so that a standard set of tasks will be executed one after the other. This will help in reducing the burden of the manual entries and hence results in good accuracy of data.

What are some of the Workflows that you can think of in an organization:

  • Customer Service Requests 
  • Purchase Approval Requests 
  • Employee Onboarding 
  • Lead management and much more

That’s one part of it!

Now coming to the next part of it. That is the Process

Process: what is it?

Process refers to the set of tasks that have a set of periodic activities which ultimately give you the result. Business processes are important and act as the core of the organization at times. It helps the business to meet the objectives and goals of time.

When it comes to any process, it can be either:

  • Operational: helps in the core business operations 
  • Management: helps in the overseeing the business process 
  • Supportive: supports the overall processes

Now that you have got a fair understanding of what a workflow is and similarly about processes. Next is to understand how these are related to each other.

As we see, both workflows and processes are important for every organization.

How are Workflows and Processes Related?

What we see is different, and so do we! Having said that, we know that both workflows and processes yield results and are a set of executable tasks. But let’s keep it his way:

A process is to be successfully executed with a set of predefined workflows to give us the results we want.

  • Processes are evaluated and can be improved upon anytime. Workflows are little more elaborate and detailed versions of processes and are configured upon analyzing every minute thing in detail. 
  • A process helps you to achieve an end goal which is really important for businesses. 
  • A process may be independent even without a workflow. But on the other side, a workflow cannot exist without the proper process.

Consider it this way:

When a process is not working properly, that’s when you think of the workflows and their automation. A couple of reasons why a workflow may fail is because of human errors, technical issues, supply chain problems, and more. Workflow automation software can help your organizations to identify and automate the tasks that are utilizing many resources.

So, when it comes to an organizational process, both workflows and processes are equally important and have their roles to play. It helps you to run through the business’s operations in a simplified way. Both concepts are prone to workflow automation and process automation respectively.

Yoroflow - Workflow Automation Platform for seamless processes

Yoroflow has been one of the leading choices for businesses of any size and niche to get adapted to the workflow automation platforms where most of the complicated processes are automated and manual interventions are reduced. It helps you with better efficiency and productivity.

  • Helps you with business process automation 
  • Seamless task management 
  • Easy approval process 
  • Low code platform and hence user-friendly 
  • Great insights and analytics

Want to know more?